Blogs from Asia - page 2

SE Asia 2023 – Leg 1 of 8 - Northern Thailand Now we are normally in our motorhome when we go travelling but this was going to be a very different trip, we won’t have our own transport, with our own bed and kitchen this time, we will be living out of our back packs for the next 4 months. As is the normal these days the trains were on strike on 3rd January 2023 so our travel plans were disrupted right from the beginning, but it was no big deal, we caught a National Express coach to Manchester Airport, via York, Leeds, Huddersfield and everywhere else in between but it got us there. Using the bus meant we arrived 12 hours earlier than our check in time, so it was a very long overnight wait ... read more

SE Asia 2023 – Leg 4 of 8 - Cambodia Arriving in Cambodia the landscape and buildings changed slightly but the traffic remained chaotic! After a few hours since crossing the border we arrived in Phnom Penh at 4pm and on the drive into Phnom Penh the expectations of a backwater city were shattered with the sight of a modern skyline and grand buildings. We got off the bus at the Giant Ibis bus company office (these coaches are great, very comfortable, clean, usually on time and reasonably priced) and it was just a 10 minute stroll to our hotel, we checked into our very nice room, showered and got ready for the night. On the top floor of the Pool Hotel was a bar, restaurant, a games room and a swimming pool, in the bar ... read more

SE Asia 2023 – Leg 7 of 8 – Singapore After 3 nights in Melaka we headed further south to the tip of the peninsula, Melaka was our last stop in Malaysia and we were now heading for country number six. Taxi to the bus station then another executive coach journey from Melaka to Singapore. The bus journey was nearly 4 hours long and getting out of Malaysia was all very simple as the coach dropped us off and we walked through customs with no problems, across the waterway and into Singapore and this was a little bit more difficult. You need to fill in an online form 48 hours before you enter Singapore, I got through no problem but for some reason Mel was placed in another queue and that took over an hour for ... read more

SE Asia 2023 – Leg 5 of 8 – South Thailand We’ve mentioned before that some bus routes and journeys are a little crazy in SE Asia well this one certainly was, direct to Pattaya from the border was 3.5 hours, but ours took 6 hours!!! On this journey we stopped to either pick up or drop off the following, large parcels, small parcels, a full family got on then off, a young Thai couple, a Soldier, a Buddhist monk, a women with her full weekly shop and a few random travellers just standing by the road, eventually we were the only people left on the minibus as we entered Pattaya, the bus dropped us a 10 minute walk from the hotel but at 19:30 it was still 30 degrees so it was a sweaty walk. ... read more

We are on an extended journey through Central Asia - essentially, what is known as the Silk Road. This is part of that journey - in Georgia. Rather than be self guided, we chose to join an organised tour. Like so many communities in Europe, Georgian peoples have not been spared oppression by invaders. The historical journey of the Georgian peoples is similar to that of Azerbaijan - except that Georgia has not been invaded by Armenia as has Azerbaijan. Rather than reiterate the journey of oppressive forces, please refer wikipedia here. Despite this, a further act of war occurred following independence in 1991 - the Russian 'invasion' in 2008. Following more than a century of Russian occupation (both Imperial and Soviet) two ethnic communities wanted not to be part of Georgia, but declare their own ... read more

May 2; Not the best departure we've experienced. It now seems but a distant memory when we planned this foray to the northern hemisphere. Then, we scheduled our departure similarly to others; a flight to an Asian hub, stay a day or 2 and then head west. In this case it was a daytime flight via AirAsia from Coolangatta to Kuala Lumpur . Some months ago we got a message that our flight had been cancelled and replaced a day earlier with a night time flight! As Judy is prone to DVT (blood clots), we try and fly during the day so she can move about the cabin and minimise the risk. On review, there were no daytime departures at all. In other words, AirAsia had altered all flight departures from Coolangatta. Our 'solution' was to ... read more